Metropolitan Transportation Commission to announce $14 million in grants for electric vehicles

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission is expected to announce $14 million in grants for electric vehicles today, including $7 million to install four "battery switching" stations for use by taxi cabs in San Francisco and San Jose.

The grant is great news for Better Place, the Palo Alto startup that has pioneered the concept of battery switching but has yet to demonstrate the concept in the United States. Rather than charging a depleted battery, the electric car pulls into a station and has the battery swapped out, a process that takes about a minute.

Better Place installed a battery-switching station in Tokyo in April, and that project has been an enormous success. Japanese citizens who hail an electric taxi often ask to go through the switching station because it's a novel experience, and more than 2,000 switches were completed in the first 90 days.

The locations of the switching stations in San Jose and San Francisco have yet to be determined, but they are likely to be in areas frequented by the region's taxi fleets, from airports to popular hotels and shopping districts.

The grant will also give local taxi companies 61 switchable battery electric vehicles.

"Taxis never stop -- taxis in San Francisco drive about 90,000 miles a year, and make anywhere from 20 to 50 trips a day," said Jason Wolf of Better Place. "It's a great opportunity to educate consumers that electric vehicles are a possibility."

The grants will be announced by the commission today at San Jose City Hall.

San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed, MTC chair Scott Haggerty and Silicon Valley Leadership Group President Carl Guardino are among those expected to attend.

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"The Bay Area wants to be the electric vehicle capital of the nation," said Rafael Reyes, director of the Bay Area Climate Collaborative, which seeks to accelerate clean energy in the region. "The Metropolitan Transportation Commission has enabled a major milestone toward realizing that vision."

The MTC is a regional transit planning agency for the Bay Area.

The three other grants are $2.8 million to local government agencies to purchase 90 electric vehicles and 90 public charging stations, $2.4 million to develop a regional "EV Infrastructure Readiness Program," and $1.7 million to City Car Share, a local car-sharing service that will purchase 29 electric vehicles, including 12 Nissan Leafs.